


Not Her

by Olivia_Ivy



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: 5+1 Things, All I'm good for, Are you happy, For everyone's sake, I made hugs sad, I shouldn't be allowed to think, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Or watch this show, That and snappy comebacks, This could have easily been fluff, Whoever gave me this messed up mind?, angst and death, but nope, please, stop me, this is the result
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6070780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olivia_Ivy/pseuds/Olivia_Ivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Title:The 5 Times Adrien Said "Not Her" and the 1 Time Ladybug Said "Not Him"</p>
<p>((Someone take my computer away from me. Don't let me think at 7 in the morning anymore Suspend my account, dear god someone sTOP ME.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady_Lombax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Lombax/gifts), [konekat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/konekat/gifts).



> I realized, about 7/8 through this, that this could have been super fluffy. Instead it's this. Enjoy.
> 
> If enough people ask, I might write the fluffy version.

**1.**

It was the day after his birthday that he noticed it. On the scarf his father had gotten him, there was impressive embroidery work, leading him to believe it came from one of his father’s lines, maybe a future winter or fall collection. The embroidery was nearly the same color as the rest of the scarf, and could really only be seen if the light hit it the right way, making the scarf even more beautiful than it was originally. The embroidery looked like snow blowing through the air in a blizzard.

Except for one part, down near the bottom.

That’s how Adrien ended up holding the scarf next to the lamp in his room, balancing on a chair, with his head turned as far upside down as it could go. (Plagg saw this display, but did nothing to stop it — as long as the camembert kept coming in, his charge could do whatever weird thing he wanted).

It took him longer than he would like to admit when it came to him finally realizing that instead of breaking his neck, he could simply turn the scarf. Once he did, he leaned in until he was a hairsbreadth away from the embroidery, and tried to decipher the stitching.

Was that an … _M_ ? It was, he realized as he made out other letters. _a … r … i … n … e …_

“Marinette?” He wondered out loud. He looked at the kwami lounging in an empty cheese container on his desk. “But … my dad gave me this, not her … right?”

**2.**

He doesn’t tell Ladybug about the nightmares.

They’re few and far between, and a part of him thinks he should tell her, but then he looks at her and sees how strong and unbreakable she is and knows that it’s just him being weak. And besides, normally, they’re not even that bad.

Normally.

_He’s in the park, at a distance away from his Lady, nearly paralyzed with fear. She’s down, staring up at the Timebreaker in horror. Everything is going in slow motion. His feet are moving before he even knows what he’s doing. Timebreaker’s hand is getting closer, but he’s faster. He has to be._

_Ignoring the pain in his knees, he skids in between the two girls with his back to the akumatized victim. He wraps his arms around her (this is the first time he’s ever hugged her) and closes his eyes._

_He has only one thought before he feels the hand hit his back — Not her._

He wakes up in a cold sweat after that one, shaking and fighting to catch his breath. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying to get a grip on reality. That’s not what happened. What happened was a second Ladybug came out of nowhere and the three of them beat the two Timebreakers. It should have been the two Ladybugs he was dreaming about, not him dying, which _didn’t happen_.

Right?

**3.**

“I need you to protect this girl.”

Chat pulls the staff away from his ear to look at the picture on the small screen (Why does he get a glorified flip phone while she gets the equivalent of the seashell-thing from _It Follows_?). His breath caught in his throat as he looked at his classmate’s smiling face.

He heard Ladybug explain how the Evillustrator had a crush on Marinette and what his role in tonight’s events would be, but he couldn’t hear much of it. He was caught on the picture in front of him.

He was never particularly close to Marinette, though not for lack of trying. He saw how kind and sweet she could be, but also how protective and volatile she was when someone was hurt. He saw her passion in everything she does, from designing to being a producer in Nino’s film, vehemently sticking by her role instead of taking the lead. He saw her pride at her father on Career Day, despite the other more high class jobs the other parents had, and her father’s pride in her.

He looked at her and saw someone who was still innocent to the nasty world around them. Someone who was about to spend the night with a superpowered guy with a noticeably shorter temper when he has the powers. Someone who is about to be right next to someone who can make anything appear out of thin air.

He signs off with Ladybug and darts out of the penthouse, already figuring out the best route to the Dupain-Cheng bakery. He promises to himself that he won’t let anything happen to her tonight. Not her, not ever.

**4.**

Why does she do this? Recklessly risk her life for the sake of his and others? That’s his job.

She’s made his heart skip more beats than he can count, not always for a good reason. Whenever she waits just a split second too long to deploy her yoyo when she’s swinging, when Rogercop threw her off the car when they were god knows how high in the air, when they were falling after popping the bubble the Bubbler put them in (wow, for a superhero based off an animal with wings, she sure does fall a lot). But this?

He was frozen as she jumped feet first into the open mouth of a fucking _T-Rex_ and the jaws snapped shut. He screamed for her, his mind fixated on that sight as if he were watching it four times over. Rage overtook him. Victim or not, Animan would pay for what he had done to her. He spun his staff just as the jaws opened and Ladybug hopped out, completely unharmed.

He watched her as she broke the fossil and purified the akuma, barely daring to blink in case she would disappear the moment he took his eyes off her. She came over and offered him a fist bump, though he was having none of it. He clutched her like a drowning man to a raft and hugged her (his second hug with her). It was at that moment he realized how bad he was shaking.

Ladybug ignored the sounds of their miraculouses and just held him back, probably knowing she gave him a heart attack and a half. He mutters, almost to himself, that he thought he lost her. He’s lost too many already, his mother disappeared, his father was lost to him soon after that — not her. He wouldn’t lose her.

**5.**

Chat sometimes hates his night vision. If only because, it lets him notice everything, including things he was never meant to.

“Hey,” he asks on one of their more quiet patrols, “What’s that in your hair?”

Her hand goes to the back of her head instantly, searching for whatever could be lodged in her black locks. He reaches over when she can’t find it and swipes a finger through the brown powder smudge in her hair. He holds his finger under the nearest source of light so she can see. “Got something you want to tell me, m’lady?”

She calmed down and shook her head, laughing slightly. “Oh, that? It’s cinnamon,” she told him. A quick lick of his glove confirmed that. “I was making cupcakes for my friend’s birthday tomorrow and I also made the frosting from scratch. She _loves_ cinnamon so I put some in the frosting.”

“You bake?” He asked, wiping away the rest of the spice on his pant leg. She shrugged as they leapt to the next rooftop.

“It’s kind of mandatory in my family,” she chuckled. Chat was on cloud nine through the rest of the patrol, images of Ladybug in a pink apron clouding his thoughts.

He carried that high all the way to the locker room the next morning as he put his things away. He froze in his little crush-induced haze when he heard a squeal from across the room: “ _Cinnamon frosting?!_ You’re the best, Marinette!”

He turned around and saw Alya hugging Marinette with one arm while holding a cupcake with a bite taken out of it in the other. Marinette was beaming and holding a cardboard box. “Happy Birthday, Alya! And I hope you like them — my hair is going to smell like cinnamon forever.”

“Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing! Cinnamon is a _godsend_.”

“Hey man,” Nino slapped Adrien’s back, knocking him out of the slight stupor he was in. “You okay? You’re staring at the girls over there.” The DJ looked over and saw the sweets, his eyes lighting up. Adrien was dragged over to the two while still in a catatonic (ha!) state. _Cinnamon frosting … birthday … hair …_

He tuned back in when Nino kissed Alya’s cheek and took the cupcake in her hand. She rolled her eyes and turned to Marinette. The black haired, blue eyed, pigtail wearing (oh god) girl giggled and opened the box, showcasing another eleven cupcakes. Alya took one and seemed to finally notice Adrien was there. “You want one? Marinette made them from scratch last night.”

He looked at Marinette as she squeaked and tried to hide behind the lid of the box. Adrien felt himself calm down. There’s no way Marinette is Ladybug. Not her. Not the sweet, stuttering, shy girl who sits behind him and works in a bakery (and probably owns a pink apron — _stop that, brain!_ ). He told Alya that it would be better if he didn’t, Nathalie would kill him, plus it was _her_ birthday. She tried to assure him that it was fine, but he turned her down and said he needed to get to class.

He instead wandered around the halls until the bell rang, trying to clear his head. Ladybug isn’t Marinette. Not her. She can’t be.

Can she?

* * *

 

Adrien’s father doesn’t often bring him on business ventures, unless they involve photoshoots. However, he saw it fit to bring Adrien with him to the bank one day.

The same day a group of people decided to rob that very bank.

Everything after they began firing into the ceiling was lost in an adrenaline coated haze. Adrien noticed that Nathalie and his father were positioned as far from the gunmen as possible, and he was between the criminals and what he called a family. Thank you, Chat Noir instincts. The bank wasn’t overly crowded, there were no small children, and it was just three gunmen, one of whom was in the back with an employee going through the safe. At least one of the two always had their eyes on the hostages. One move had the automatic weapons of both robbers trained on the offending hostage’s head.

From where he was, Adrien could see the police set up in a perimeter around the bank. A crowd had gathered and started cheering. He glanced up and beamed, seeing why. Ladybug had just swung into the police barricade and began talking to who must be the officer in charge. He tried to catch her eye as she stood with her side facing the bank. He could just tell she was furrowing her brow and frowning at the situation from her stance.

“Oi,” one of the robbers said, roughly pushing the back of Adrien’s head with the nozzle of the gun. “What are you smiling at, pretty boy?” Adrien dropped his smile, but the robber already caught his gaze and growled at the sight of the spotted superhero.

He went over to his partner and they discussed what to do about Ladybug. The superhero glared over at the robbers, as if she knew they were talking about her. Her gaze caught Adrien’s and he smiled again. Her eyes widened and she looked away quickly. She said a few more words to the officer and zipped away. Adrien’s eyes went to the ceiling — she has to be coming in through the roof.

He’s proven right when the grate on the air vent near him on the ceiling pops out and Ladybug drops down. He’s beaming even as one of the gunmen trains the automatic weapon on him. He barely hears a gasp and sees a flash of red before hearing loud pops and having a weight crash into him.

He can hear the robbers yelling. Cops shouting, glass breaking, people screaming, more gunshots. He can hear it all, but all he can see is Ladybug, in his arms, bleeding.

He’s begging her, crying, confessing, anything to stop her from leaving him too.

“Ladybug,” he sobs, wiping at his eyes furiously. “It’s me. It’s Chat. Please, _please_ just —”

“Chat?” She asks, coughing. He nodded and pushed her bangs out of her face. She grimaced and squeezed her sparkling blue eyes shut. “Sorry Chat. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that, you have nothing to be sorry for,” he assured her. He could feel hands pulling at him. Whether they were paramedics trying to get to Ladybug, Nathalie trying to get him away before he got more blood on his clothes, or his father trying to tell him that she’s gone (wouldn’t the first time he’s done that). He shook them all off and kept his attention on her.

“Sorry,” she repeats. “I just … just couldn’t let him …” she takes a shaky breath in through her nose, eyes still shut. “Couldn’t let him … get shot. N-not Adrien,” she went limp in his arms and he held her tighter (his last hug with her). “Not him.”

**Author's Note:**

> This kind of became an amalgamation of other works on this site, so here:
> 
> 2\. The Desperation of a Once-Lucky Bug — Lady_Lombax (I almost cried. Friggin Timebroken AU)
> 
> 3\. Not That Type Of Disney Princess — Lady_Lombax (Not really inspired by, but it pertains to the episode and I just love this story)
> 
> 5\. The Hazard of Being a Baker's Daughter — konekat (yes flour can get everywhere — but have you ever worked with cinnamon?)


End file.
